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Favourite and least favourite skills to build?
GrumpyGlowfish
Posts: 2,208 Member
This is less about the overall usefulness of each skill, and more about how much fun you have building them with your sims, be it because you find it interesting to watch them while they're at it, or like the benefits that come with the process, or just have fun engaging in such activities, and so on.
Some of my favourites:
Handiness. Nothing compares to slowly turning your humble ramshackle hovel into a high-tech fortress decorated with all kinds of beautiful, emotional, or just bizarre wooden figurines. Too bad this skill doesn't get you anywhere on the job market.
Fitness. Great variety here, there are so many ways to gain fitness (like using gym equipment, swimming, playing basketball and ice skating) which, unlike all the things lumped together under "Logic", are actually somewhat related. It also visibly affects your sim's body, can give them positive moodlets, and jogging is an ideal opportunity to try out the new first-person mode.
Archaeology. Building this skill happens very naturally, it takes only one thorough visit to the Selvadoradian jungle to get it to at least level 7, and you receive many valuable objects while doing so.
Least favourites:
Charisma. Not only is it incredibly uninteresting to watch a sim practice speeches in front of a mirror all day, it also doesn't benefit them at all other than building the skill - no fulfilled needs, no emotional moodlets, no items, no new insights, just the occasional whim. Building it in conversation with other sims seems random to me, is there any way to tell if a certain interaction is going to help with it?
Selvadoradian Culture. Granted, it only has five levels, but those are tiring to reach unless you really, really want to fatten your sim up; you can only look at Madre Cosecha and listen to the same jungle legends so many times before it gets boring.
Photography. Spamming selfies just to get that bar up quickly becomes tedious, especially since you can't even choose poses. Thankfully, of the five photos you can take at a time, at least one usually turns out okay, so there's no pressure to actually get better at it. I only maxed it once for the sake of completion, then pretty much forgot it even exists.
Some of my favourites:
Handiness. Nothing compares to slowly turning your humble ramshackle hovel into a high-tech fortress decorated with all kinds of beautiful, emotional, or just bizarre wooden figurines. Too bad this skill doesn't get you anywhere on the job market.
Fitness. Great variety here, there are so many ways to gain fitness (like using gym equipment, swimming, playing basketball and ice skating) which, unlike all the things lumped together under "Logic", are actually somewhat related. It also visibly affects your sim's body, can give them positive moodlets, and jogging is an ideal opportunity to try out the new first-person mode.
Archaeology. Building this skill happens very naturally, it takes only one thorough visit to the Selvadoradian jungle to get it to at least level 7, and you receive many valuable objects while doing so.
Least favourites:
Charisma. Not only is it incredibly uninteresting to watch a sim practice speeches in front of a mirror all day, it also doesn't benefit them at all other than building the skill - no fulfilled needs, no emotional moodlets, no items, no new insights, just the occasional whim. Building it in conversation with other sims seems random to me, is there any way to tell if a certain interaction is going to help with it?
Selvadoradian Culture. Granted, it only has five levels, but those are tiring to reach unless you really, really want to fatten your sim up; you can only look at Madre Cosecha and listen to the same jungle legends so many times before it gets boring.
Photography. Spamming selfies just to get that bar up quickly becomes tedious, especially since you can't even choose poses. Thankfully, of the five photos you can take at a time, at least one usually turns out okay, so there's no pressure to actually get better at it. I only maxed it once for the sake of completion, then pretty much forgot it even exists.
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Comments
I also love gardening in the game. Getting everything to perfect and adding it to my community garden is something I enjoy in the game.
I enjoy watching them do yoga.
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I'm not keen on the fitness skill because of how they can get overly muscular so I don't have a lot of sims do that. Some jogging and things to stay in shape is good enough.
The thing I don't like about the archaeology is how long it takes to uncover something at the table. It's just too long.
I've never bothered with the mischief skill.
My least favourite is logic. I don't get why you can only build this skill with playing chess? It's just so boring to see your sim play chess all day long. I wish your sim could make mathematical diagrams on the computer or something. Or maybe drawings on a sketchbook?
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
As for least favorite, Herbalism by far. On top of the fact that I have to take a vacation to get to the materials I need, scanning over the Granite Falls floor looking for plants and bugs to collect in order to level this skill irritates me and I don't find it enjoyable whatsoever. I know there are other ways to level the skill but they either take more time (like growing the plants at home) or feel cheaty (like getting the plants off the gallery or something)
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My least favourite is Handiness. When something breaks, I just replace it. I rarely have my sims fix it . It's only useful if your sims are on a budget, and mine almost never are haha.
Cooking/gourmet cooking: it’s just a fun skill to watch sims build and I enjoy the progression of it. It’s a skill I really enjoy watching and I tend to zoom in and just watch the sims cook. The animations are different depending on what you are cooking too, which I like.
Painting: again it’s a progression thing. I also love seeing what my sims paint because there are so many possibilities in this version of the game. Plus let’s be real it earns a lot of money.
Least Favorites
Logic: I honestly am like everyone else it’s just a boring skill to progress. Has never been exciting in other versions of the game either though so it’s probably always been one of my least favorites. I had sims use it a lot more in sims 3 though. Probably because the telescope was a normal size lol.
I don't really dislike any skill, but I don't think any of my 230 sims learned mixology unless they mixed a random drink, of course.
The one I least like I think it is photography. I have to take a thousand of 🐸🐸🐸🐸 pictures with random gnomes in it before the pictures start coming out good and I can display them. It is really annoying lol.
For Charisma I never have them practice in the mirror and they always get it up quick. I play a lot of lothario types though. It's mostly the interactions where you compliment sims and brighten their day.. I do have to admit I spam all of the interactions once a day per sim they meet though. It's basically sprinkled in with any convo they have. I started a 2 days and his charisma level is 6. (Opps my two days not two sim days). He also topped his good reputation .. I think it's called pristine but whatever the top is. It does give you a lot more ways to make friends easier and have things smooth over faster. Now with Get Famous it's useful for many jobs. He was offered a tier 5 level acting career (with no acting ability) due to his good rep. I started taking him to auditions that asked for higher charisma.
Otherwise I like most of them.. some need a cool down phase if the variety of ways to get it aren't big. Some I haven't done because I haven't made a sim character that does that.. like I've never made a DJ sim.
The ones I find the most tedious to build is programming and rocket science.
My least favorite .. uh.. don't really have a least favorite. Charisma is one that I pretty much never, and I mean never...have my sims actively work on. But not because I don't like it, it's just that It comes quickly enough just interacting with other sims in my game. Socializing is something I have my active sim take the time to do every single day. Working in time for the other skill-building is what is a challenge for me....charisma is generally one of the first I cap, without trying.
@AKL500p, I am with you on that telescope thing... I love using the telescope, but it's too damnably big to fit the decor/landscape of most homes. I'd kill for a normal size one. Hmm...been playing a lot with the ability to resize things (like I made the snow globes smaller so I could fit all of them on top of a fish tank). Wonder if the telescope would still be useable if shrunk down to one-tile...haven't tried.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
Unlike many, I actually like building the Logic skill, even if it's just playing chess most of the time. Chess provides fun, keeps them busy, gives them a focused moodlet useful for work and other things, and you can always have another sim join in. The latter is perfect for sims who need to raise their fun and social bars while getting to know each other better at the same time.
I agree with Herbalism being rather lame. Harvesting herbs doesn't even build your Herbalism skill, brewing potions does, and while some of those potions can be quite useful, I wish they didn't require insects to be made, because those can be hard to come by. I had to download a mod to make insects appear in my main herbalist's garden because I couldn't afford going to Granite Falls every other day.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
I never quite understood the photography skill in TS4. I think my none skilled sims take pictures good enough for the wall, easily enough. Okay, there are a few gnomes or blurriness. But as you always can take 5 pictures, it's actually hard not to get it right on one of them, even with low skills.
In TS3 I think the photography skill must have worked differently, as I remember using "pro photographers" more often.
Added: I never tried this skill/career for a living, though. Maybe there is more to it than raising the photograph values when getting real skilled.
Writing- I love to write IRL so it's a realistic aspect I translate into gameplay
Cooking/Gourmet Cooking- can't cook worth a squat IRL but I love cooking in games (and I'm always good at the skill)
Music/Painting- they're just fun creative skills I think.
Wellness- I'm interested in yoga and meditation but haven't gotten the courage to try them, so I live out those skills with my Sims
Vampire Lore- vampire freak, guilty as charged
Least Favorite- I don't really have a least favorite skill/skills, but charisma and photography are PITAs (even with Lot Traits.) Do toddler skills count? If so, I hate those with a passion.
Painting because they can make a lot of money from it, cooking so they can create a wide variety of dishes for the household, and archeology because I'm into that sort of thing in rl.
Least favorite-Charisma, mischief, violin. Charisma because it takes too long & just seems pointless, mischief because I hate pranks, I think they're cruel & abusive, and violin because those dang things are just squawky, and once the master it, they won't stop playing it.
http://modthesims.info/d/580697
This mod unlocks the various insect spawners and lets you place them on any lot. It's a little annoying that the objects completely disappear after being placed, so you can't even see them in build mode and have to place walls over them to delete them, but other than that, I've been using them for almost a year and they're working just fine.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
Baking
DJing
Bowling
Piano
Violin
Wellness
Singing
Skills I like the least:
Parenting
Photography
Comedy
- Baking
- Cooking
- Fitness
- Dancing
- Handiness
Least Favorites
- Mischief
- Charisma
- Logic
Dancing's pretty fun to watch too.
Mischief is really dicey because you kind of have to have a pleasant conversation first in order for it to go well. I usually just cheat that one up.
Logic is so extremely boring to watch because chess and books.